“Hi, girls!” Sister Evangelina walked through the door. “Sinta, Jerry.” She nodded. “Oh, look! Thought I smelled something good.”
“Oh yes, and you just happened along, Sister Evangelina. Don’t try to be so innocent. I want you to bring some of these over to Padre when you take the host, all right? The rest are going to the country club.”
“Are all those boxes you’ve got stacked over there going to the country club?”
“Yes. You got a problem with that?” Constanza asked.
“No problem, but those folks hardly ever show up in church.”
“Eating hot-cross buns has absolutely nothing to do with going to church, Sister,” Constanza said as she touched one of the buns to see if it was cool enough for the girls to start decorating.
“I know, I know…but it makes you wonder.”
“Worried about them doing their Easter duty?”
Jerry looked apprehensively at her aunt, who seemed absorbed in her task of decorating the buns. She didn’t like this talk of duty, going to church. She was pretty sure that her aunt didn’t expect her to go. Still, all this talk made her nervous.
“I don’t worry about them, but their children. I mean, all they think Easter is these days is Easter eggs and bunny rabbits.”
“Easier than confession and Communion,” Constanza offered. Jerry tried to concentrate on the buns. She couldn’t exactly get up and leave. It would seem rude. And although she talked more now, she wasn’t skillful enough to slide in and redirect the conversation, change the subject.
“Of course it’s easier. Everything that’s bad for you is easier.”
“Chocolate rabbits aren’t that bad for you.”
“Constanza!” Sister Evangelina sighed. “I could use a little support here. I swear.”
“Don’t swear, Sister, it doesn’t become a nun.”
“I’ll do anything I please.” Sister Evangelina sniffed, and cast an eye toward the bowl of frosting.
Jerry shut her eyes, trying to block the talk. She was here, safe in her aunt’s kitchen. There was the sweet smell of the hot-cross buns. There was this fat nun laughing at her aunt and her aunt teasing the nun. Jerry took up the pastry tube and focused on the newest batch of buns that had cooled and was now ready for decorating. She hardly heard what they were saying. Tomorrow was Good Friday. She didn’t know what she would do, if she would go to church or what. What had Zayana done? Prayed to all her gods—found room in her heart for the white lady, the Virgin; found room for the feathered serpent; found room for the eagle; found room for the words of the faith of her husband, León. But she, Jerry, was no Zayana. How could she ever be Zayana—Zayana, who had dragged that trunk from Quimpaco, to Tampico, to Mexico City—to Jerry! The thought was so startling. Could that be? Was this the meaning of it all? The trunk held mere things, but was she now the holder of Zayana’s hopes?
Chapter 23
We worship you, Lord,
we venerate your cross,
we praise your resurrection.
Through the cross you brought joy to the world.
May God be gracious and bless us;
And let his face shed its light upon us.
(Psalm 67:2)
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON on Good Friday, and Jerry stood next to Constanza outside, by the last cross in the churchyard. They had just completed the journey of the Stations of the Cross and were standing by the last station, the fourteenth, representing where Christ was laid in the tomb. Jerry liked the fact that they had done this outside. Sister Lucia, a nun from the same order as Sister Evangelina, had piped a soft melody on a wooden flute as the small congregation walked the stations. Padre Hernandez spoke the concluding words of the Veneration of the Cross. Jerry looked down and dug the toe of her shoe into the dirt and thin grass. A little piece of the earth seemed to move on its own to the left of her shoe. It was the silk-and-mud door of a trapdoor spider. The twilight hunters. She had never seen one or really looked for one since that first week. She remembered that it was the trapdoor spider that helped her speak aloud for the first time. I hope they never get into your bread. The words came back to her now. She could hear them so clearly in her head.
It was time now to go into the church again. Inside, the church was dark. There was not a flower decorating the altar, not a candle lit. The colorful altar cloths had been replaced with black draperies. Padre Hernandez genuflected and, raising the ciborium, spoke to the people: “This is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world….”
It was getting dark when Jerry and Constanza were driving home from church. A purple light had settled over the land, and they had turned off down a dirt road to take a shortcut back to their house. The road was rough, for it had been badly cut up by arroyos. But the land was so beautiful that Jerry was happy because they had to go slow and happy that Constanza was driving and she could look out the window. The chamisa seemed to hover like mist rather than grow from the earth, and the spiky cacti stood like sentries against the mournful deep lavender sky. The road climbed up and Constanza pulled to the side where it widened. There was a broad gravel shoulder. She stopped the truck. The evening seemed steeped in the deep dusky purples that sometimes bled into the sky between twilight and night.
“First star!” Constanza said. And to Jerry the two words seemed like a prayer.
They opened the truck doors and stepped out.
Stars! Older than the stars. She remembered when she had tried to not think of stars. She had refused to write about that lovely passage from Romeo and Juliet just so she would not think about the stars—and Miriam who was older than the stars. This was in a sense the story of Jerry’s life—trying not to think—and with it came silence, the immutable silence. And she had become so good at it. Why, yes, the first time she had ever seen Constanza, when Constanza had unfolded those long legs from her truck and that dress swirled around her ankles in little gusts, Jerry hadn’t even thought of her mother’s skirt back then swirling around her ankles. She hadn’t thought about her mom waving good-bye and the doll…the damn doll. It had all been perfect, a world of perfect silence. No sounds, no images got past her rating system. No sirree. The flawlessly mute world and she controlled it all. But now there were stars up there. Stars like little flames of candlelight. And Jerry pictured herself the obedient, silent small child standing by the window holding the candle. She pictured the sill, the one her mother was supposed to hoist herself over and come back through. She pictured herself waiting…waiting waiting. And then she tipped back her head and knew that she was no longer waiting. And she knew that she only wanted to see the stars and love them for what they were. The waiting was over. And the face of heaven was so fine that she loved the night with all its stars that now rose and shimmered over the mountains.
There was a doll. She had seen it from the first time she ever opened the trunk, but she hadn’t ignored it, exactly. She had just decided not to think about it. She knew where the doll was. It was near where she had left the scrap of the map and the mezuzah. It hardly looked like a doll anymore. It had been gnawed on by rodents. The red dress had faded, and the little carved head that once probably had a painted face seemed worn smooth. Jerry lifted the lid of the trunk. The doll was there, faceless but waiting. Jerry thought of that girl on that far border of time with her veil of butterflies, and then numbly holding this very doll in her hands, not even knowing that she had a real live flesh-and-blood baby of her own. And she remembered her own mother now with her own dolls, the ones Jerry had tried not to think about. She picked up the doll and then replaced it very carefully. The doll was a doll, nothing more. Jerry felt something still in her. It was as if something had released deep within. She knew that she was not the first child to have a childish mother who confused her dolls with life. There was a medal, too, that she had seen. The medal had a flag on it and a date: January 6, 1912.
Time took a slow twist. She smelled sagebrush in the air. It smelled almost like home, but it wasn’t home. There
was a girl, maybe just a few years younger than herself, standing in a dress with a dropped waist and a flounced skirt and high-button shoes….
In the House of the Schoolteacher
VIA ROJA
VEGA DEL MONTE
NEW MEXICO
JANUARY 6, 1912
Jeraldine
Because Papa is the schoolteacher, I must be perfect at the ceremonies. I have to recite the poem written by Papa’s best friend, Señor Seña, also a schoolteacher. He wrote a poem to celebrate our becoming a state. Today is the day! Everyone is so excited. My brother, I think, is the most excited of all. Fernando is studying for the priesthood, and he says that this is the best thing that has happened in all of our lives. He says Señor Seña’s poem captures the true meaning of statehood. I must confess I do not understand the poem at all. He keeps talking about now we have this new flag and it is unstained. So I ask unstained by what, and he says “blood”—the blood that came from the Spanish Inquisition. But I still don’t understand. I have lived here in Vega del Monte all twelve years of my life. I have seen no blood. I don’t know what my brother is talking about, especially when he says nuestra gente, our people…. Which people is he speaking of?
“Mama, Papa!” Fernando Morillo stood up at the table and began to lift a glass. “I know it has been a long day, a most wonderful day.”
“Oh my goodness,” Miguel Morillo smiled and reached for a cigar. “Already he speaks like a priest at a church fund-raiser. You see, my dear,” he said, turning to his wife, “they get them started even before they are ordained.”
A shadow of a grimace passed over Fernando’s face. “No, Papa…this…this is…”
“Hush, Miguel,” Mildred Morillo said. “Let our son go on.”
“If I may,” Fernando continued. “What I have to say may come as a shock, but…” He swallowed. Jeraldine was suddenly not sleepy. Something terrible, a sense of dread, seemed to have stolen into the room.
“Yes, go on,” said his father somewhat sternly.
“Well, with the statehood of New Mexico, a time of new beginnings is at hand.”
“Yes,” said his mother warily.
Jeraldine had no idea what they were talking about, but her attention was riveted. “Mama, Papa”—he paused and looked over at his much-younger sister—“Jeraldine.” Jeraldine glowed. She loved her big brother, and he included her the way adults never did. “Well, I have decided not to continue studying for the priesthood.”
“You mean you have finished?” This time it was his grandmother Milagros who spoke.
“No, no, Abuela. I have not finished. I have stopped because I don’t want to be a priest.”
“What do you mean, Fernando?” Jeraldine asked. “How can I tell my friends at school this?”
“Your friends, Jeraldine? It is my life.” The words were harsh but spoken gently. Jeraldine felt her eyes fill.
“We were all so proud, Fernando.” It was as if his mother had sighed rather than actually spoken.
“There has always been a priest in this family, for generations.” His Uncle Fernando spoke, his eyes cast down into the plate.
“That is just the problem.” A tremor had crept into Fernando’s voice.
“What are you talking about?” his mother asked.
“Mama, Papa, Uncle Nando, we have always had priests in our family because we were scared. It was a cover, not a commitment. Faith by fear.”
Uncle Fernando jumped up from the table and threw down his napkin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We have always been good Catholics.”
Mildred Morillo’s face turned pale, her eyes lifeless. She stared ahead into some lost space. “I know what he is saying and he better stop right now. It might be nineteen twelve, but it can happen again. It is safer to be Catholic.”
Jeraldine suddenly exploded. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. I’m sick of being left out! What can happen again? Why is it safer to be Catholic? Isn’t it the only way to be?”
Fernando turned slowly toward his young sister. “Not if you were not born that way.”
“But you were, Fernando.” His mother seemed to recover herself. “You were baptized.” And she patted her head lightly. Fernando turned and walked out of the house. Jeraldine was frightened. She loved her big brother more than anything.
Fernando had not gone away for good. But he had moved out of the Casa de Hermanos, where the seminary students lived. He was living on the other side of the town, and Jeraldine had followed him one day to the house of a man.
“Fernando!” she called out.
“Jeraldine. What are you doing here?”
“I followed you. I had to tell you I don’t care if you are a priest or not, as long as you are my brother. That is all that counts. But don’t leave us.” She gulped. She had sworn she would not cry. “Don’t leave me.”
“Jeraldine. I shall always be your brother. Nothing can change that and I am not leaving you. I am simply going to something.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
“I won’t if no one tells me. What is this house? Who lives here?”
“A rabbi.”
“A rabbi? You mean like a Jewish priest.”
Fernando hesitated. “Yes.”
“So you are going to be a priest!” Jeraldine said hopefully.
“No, Jeraldine. I am a Jew. I have always been a Jew and so have you.”
My brother could not get rid of me. I stuck to him like a fly to flypaper. So he had no choice but to take me with him to the rabbi’s house. I am sitting in the corner of the rabbi’s study. Quiet as a mouse. The rabbi wears a long beard. I have never seen such a long beard. Somewhere in the crinkly whiskers that tumble like a waterfall down his shirtfront there is a mouth. I do not like the words the mouth says to my brother.
“You are not what you think you are. You have no proof.” The voice is thick and sweaty sounding.
“But I have always been a Jew. What do you mean, proof that my family has kept the tradition? We couldn’t.”
“But many did secretly,” the rabbi replies.
“But that is just the point, Rabbi: They had to do it secretly. So how could there be proof?”
“You must go to the mikvah, the ritual bath, and wash yourself of the impurities.”
“But that is insulting. Don’t you see that?”
“But only in that way can you convert.”
“But I am not converting from anything. I have always been a Jew, in my heart, in my soul.”
And round and round the argument goes. I’m tired. I’m very confused. I want my brother back—Jew or not. I fall asleep in the chair in the corner of the rabbi’s study.
How many more times did I see my brother? I do not remember. I just remember the last time. It was at twilight, and I had been waiting for him near the house where he now rented a room. He came out with a suitcase and started down the road toward the place where the bus stopped, the bus that went to Albuquerque and then west. They said it went all the way to California. I felt this terrible coldness fill my chest as I saw him walk out with his suitcase. I knew he was leaving for good. But it became one of those moments, those horribly long moments. There was this frightening clarity. Every blade of grass stood out. I could see a trapdoor spider lift its perfect little piece of earth and walk down toward the road. I could almost hear its eight little feet tamping in the dust. This was awful. My brother was leaving me, leaving me for a faith that would not have him!
Chapter 24
JERRY’S HAND SHOOK. She looked down at the doll. Her mind was still with Jeraldine. She stood beside that girl in the dusty road. She stood beside her and tried to help her remember all the good things that her brother had done—the arms that had lifted her up to reach the fruit on the branches of the peach tree that grew in their backyard, the voice that had woven itself like silk through the long nights when she had had pneumonia, reading to her endless stories, fairy tales and my
ths. This was a myth, wasn’t it, that was happening right now? Fernando was disappearing and then he would magically reappear. Yes, the peach from the tree would split open and Fernando would step out. Jerry shook her head. It was now Saturday. Holy Saturday. In a few hours she and Constanza would go to church for the service of light, the Easter vigil.
“Amigos,” Padre Hernandez welcomed them outside the church where a large fire burned. “Welcome on this our most holy night, when our Lord Jesus passed from death to life. We come together now in vigil and prayer. We honor the memory of his death and celebrate the resurrection…. We celebrate this holiest of the mysteries, and rejoice in that which cannot be fully understood but indeed brings the power of our Lord closer to us…and let us now pray as this fire is blessed from which we shall light the paschal candle…. Father, we share in the light of your glory through the light of your Son Jesus Christ. May blessings descend on this lighted candle and may the light from this fire inflame us with hope and love and may Almighty God and his son look down upon us through this light and shine through our long night, dispel the darkness and illuminate our souls….”
Jerry closed her eyes tight. The fires would not diminish; huge bonfires blazed in her mind’s eye. Bodies became ashes. The ashes swirled up into the sky. When Jerry and her aunt stepped out of the church after the service of the vigil, it was dark. The few stars that had begun to appear at twilight were beginning to vanish, their frail light sucked into the blackness of the night. Constanza walked slowly. A heaviness seemed to have settled upon her. She seemed smaller. It was as if she had shrunk within her own body and now was exhausted from dragging around something that was simply too large. Had she been wrong in telling Constanza all that she had discovered in the cellar? Was it simply too much for the old woman? They drove silently home. Constanza went straight to bed, hardly muttering a good night. Jerry watched as the door to her aunt’s bedroom closed. She must go to the cellar now.